Encountering Mary's Motherhood this Advent
What God Speaks in Your Losses
Photo By: Flickr/Lawrence OP
Last Friday I received an email, and it grasped my heart. In it were these beautiful messages: God still desires to heal you. God still is present to you. God still is with you.
This whole COVID situation has led to so much loss and disappointment. It has led to many thoughts that God isn’t present with us and that He has seemingly forgotten us. How can we not feel this way in the face of so much suffering, death, confusion and loss?
I thought I was exempt from those losses, but I wasn’t. Mine were just different from most.
I haven’t lost income, I haven’t lost my job, I haven’t lost health, I haven’t lost any lives. But I have lost two meaningful relationships for reasons I can’t explain or pinpoint. I have lost the paths to healing I was on. And it’s like a sword to my heart some days.
I don’t understand.
Many of us are in this boat. We don’t get it. We don’t understand. We don’t know what to say. We just know it hurts. It’s painful. It breaks us. Whatever we lost.
But what I do know that the truths in that email spoke to my soul that day, and maybe that’s the silver lining in all this that we all need to hear:
God still desires to heal you.
God still is present to you.
God still is with you.
Despite all you’ve lost.
About the Author
Katie Zalany lives in Cleveland Ohio. She is a Third Order Secular Franciscan (OFS), spiritual director, benefits/wellness leader, and certified health and life coach. She volunteers with St. Vincent de Paul Society serving the poor, is an active mentor to many individuals, and a prolific writer. Her writing interests and focus areas include spiritual development, reflections on the Gospel life, Franciscian spirituality, prayer, and integration of faith and work/daily living. She is the published author of Called to Corporate: Lessons of Growing in Faith and Holiness from the Corporate Cubicle.
